


screw it, we're going for it

by kay_bee_cee



Series: let's write some history [1]
Category: SEAL Team (TV)
Genre: Hurt Clay Spenser, Hurt/Comfort, I don't really know how to use these tags, Jason is so done with this, Multi, Platonic Relationships, Team as Family, Unrequited Love, but I think this story is pretty cool?, not amongst Bravo, so please read it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24896653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_bee_cee/pseuds/kay_bee_cee
Summary: They say the two most important days in your life are the day you're born, and the day you figure out why. For Grace Hall, the latter came one day at age sixteen when she decided to stop wondering why there were so few women in the military, and resolved to become one herself.Being a SEAL isn't easy, nor is being a woman. And to be both at once? Well, it takes courage, ambition, determination, and enough control to not punch people in the face no matter how obnoxious they're being. Thankfully, Grace has plenty of the first three, kinda sometimes somewhat the fourth?, AND a great team behind her.
Relationships: Alana Hayes/Jason Hayes, Naima Perry/Ray Perry, Stella Baxter/Clay Spenser
Series: let's write some history [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2143194
Comments: 20
Kudos: 79





	1. one less day from dying young

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came about when I wondered why the show featured no female SEALs. Turns out, it's because there aren't any. SO, naturally, I decided to come up with my own! This fic will follow Grace coming into Bravo, how she fits with the team on ops, and some details from her personal life.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace finds her way to Bravo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from One Less Day by Rob Thomas

It’s often said that the military is a brotherhood. The Navy had a fierce pride and camaraderie, as did Tier One operators, so by the time one reached DEVGRU, it was something of a given that they would know all their fellow SEALs; by association if not personally. Jason Hayes was no exception to this rule, and he prided himself on being able to identify any SEAL he encountered on base. So, when his rookie stopped in a hallway for a short conversation and a fist-bump with another just-out-of-Green-Team recruit, he immediately knew who it was that Spenser was talking to.

He recognized Grace Hall right away from the few times he’d seen her at Green Team. She was the girl who--well, really, that was all that needed to be said. Hall had been the only female in her class, to the surprise of no one. To put it into perspective, the group before her’s had contained a record-breaking two women, and the two classes before had each hosted just one. Before that, the number had been holding at a steady zero since the creation of the Navy.

What this meant was that Hall had absolutely nowhere to hide. There would be people watching her every move, looking for a mistake that could be used to discredit her and all others of her same gender. She’d ended up being drafted by Romeo team, which seemed to be a good place for her. Jason knew somewhat of their leader, who was thought of as a relatively upstanding man, enough so that Jason was confident that he’d taken Hall for her own merit, not to prove a point or attempt to drive her out.

Jason was vaguely aware that Clay had been close with Hall during Green Team; he recalled Seaver mentioning that Spenser, Hall, and the Armstrong kid that died in the parachute incident had been a tight-knit group. It made sense, Jason thought. It was a well-known and often observed fact that outsiders tend to stick together. Clay, with his PNG’d father, and Hall, being the sole female recruit, were bound to flock to each other. How Armstrong had fit in, Jason didn’t know, but losing him had probably only drawn the two closer.

Still, it didn’t immediately dawn on him why Clay paled dramatically when Blackburn delivered the news of Romeo team’s demise. Of course it was a tragedy; losing a SEAL always was, and for five of the six to be taken out in one fell swoop only made it more of a punch to the gut. Even so, death was an unfortunate inevitability in their line of work. Spenser may have been new to Bravo, but he’d been in the Navy for years, had made his trips overseas, and had surely seen casualties before. What made this one different didn’t occur to Jason until Clay, still looking shell-shocked, mumbled, “Grace.”

Jason understood immediately, but at the rest of the team’s confused looks, Clay elaborated. “Grace Hall. She was on Romeo team. We were in Green Team together, she’s a friend of mine.”

Blackburn nodded, addressing the team again. “Grace Hall--Romeo 6--was positioned as overwatch at the time of the ambush. She was able to hold on until QRF could arrive.” The men of Bravo winced sympathetically. To lose her entire team, straight out of Green Team, at that...well, that would be a good way to turn a person away from operating.

“That’s a rough deal,” Ray said. “I wouldn’t blame that kid if she doesn’t want to come back after this one.” Trent and Brock nodded along, but Jason scoffed.

“I would,” he said. “It sucks, but she signed up for it. We all did.”

“I’m with Jase,” Sonny drawled. “That’s the risk of being a Team guy. She bails out now, what’d she get saved for over the guys who’d come back raring to give hell to whoever killed their team?”

“God makes those decisions, not you, Sonny,” Ray pointed out. “And she’s _alive_ , so it’s hardly a waste, regardless of whether or not she chooses to keep operating.”

“What happens to her now?” Brock asked, cutting off Sonny’s response. It was probably for the best, as theological debates with the Texan tended to take increasingly absurd turns the longer they carried on. It was a proven fact that T (time spent in thoughtful discussion with Sonny) directly correlated with S (the loss of the other participant’s sanity); there was even a rather aesthetically pleasing graph placed in the cages to back it up. No one had taken responsibility for it, despite Sonny’s efforts to find the culprit, which led to another graph being posted: Episodes of Detective Shows Watched by Sonny vs. Everyone Else’s Will to Live.

Blackburn addressed Brock’s question, probably sparing the rest of the team from the creation of another graph and, subsequently, another week of Sonny’s impromptu ‘interrogations’, that would arise from existential speculation. “Either another team will take Hall, or she’ll go back with the rest of the undrafted recruits in her Green Team class.”

“She won’t stick with Romeo when it’s rebuilt?” Trent asked.

“No, the brass prefer to start from scratch in situations like these,” Jason explained, his voice taking on a dismissive note that the rest of the team recognized as his ‘sarcastically ranting about the stupidity of the higher-ups’ tone. “No emotions that way.”

“B.S.,” Sonny declared. “Girl should get a chance to get her team some justice.”

“I don’t know if there’s much justice left to be served,” Blackburn said. “Hall managed to take out all of the enemy forces at the scene.”

“All of them?” Sonny parroted. “Before QRF got there?” The rest of the men looked similarly impressed, whispering amongst themselves.

“Took ‘em all out before they knew where she was,” Blackburn nodded. “It was some damn fine work, and I don’t say that lightly.”

Ray glanced over at Jason after the last remark. Now, Jason had known Ray for years now, more years than either of them probably wanted to admit. Serving alongside a person, sleeping inches away from them on deployments, hanging in hammocks next to each other on planes, and sharing beers on downtime, that leaves you with an innate ability to communicate without words. That is to say, Jason could read Ray like a book. Not even an encyclopedia or a chapter book, like a children’s book composed of pictures and maybe two words a page. That look in his 2IC’s eyes was easily decipherable, and Jason didn’t like what it said.

“No,” he said immediately. “We already have one rookie, we do not need to be volunteering to break in another.”

“Come on, brother, you can’t say you’re not impressed, or at least intrigued by what that kid pulled off,” Ray argued.

“I don’t know if it really screams ‘emotional stability’,” Jason shot back. “It doesn’t matter how good she is if we can’t count on her head being where it should be.”

“You can,” Clay said, speaking up for the first time since finding out Grace was okay. “In Green Team, she dealt with more assholes than I could count making sexist comments, unsolicited advances, you name it. Never once did she let it get to her. She just did her job and let her skills speak for themselves.”

Ray pointed to the youngest member of Bravo, as if saying ‘See? Point proven.’ Jason was still not sold.

“That’s great, but this is different. No way she shakes this off as easily.”

“Isn’t that the sort of thing that a team is good for?” Ray said, raising an eyebrow. “I’m placing my bet that her skills are gonna be worth the effort.”

“All of this is only _if_ she even wants to operate again,” Bravo 1 reminded them.

“Oh, she will,” Clay assured them. “And for what it’s worth, I’d trust her with my life any day. I think we should take her.”

“Well, no decisions have to be made today,” Blackburn said. “Hall’s got some mandatory time off, at least until after Romeo team’s memorial.”

“We’ll think it over,” Ray promised with that reasonable tone that Jason sometimes hated. It usually led to him being told that no, that was not a good idea and he should not do it, or sometimes that yes, he did actually have to listen to that person. “Right, Jase?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving a hand. “We’ll think about it. Now, what’s the op we were called here for in the first place?”

Blackburn and Mandy got to explaining the mission and its objective. It was a security job, escorting some American politicians through an unstable part of Tunisia (“Great, babysitting a buncha’ suits through hot-as-balls Africa,” Sonny commented). Thankfully, it only _somewhat_ went to hell, and they ended up in one piece and in relatively good spirits. Still, Jason couldn’t help but find himself thinking that an extra set of eyes up high, or one more person watching their six, another team member to pick off the anti-Western group hostiles before they got a lucky shot on Bravo, might--knock on wood--make their lives a fraction of a bit easier. Maybe the odds would be slightly less stacked against them the next time an op inevitably went sideways.

He voiced this line of thinking to Ray on the plane ride home, glaring at the self-satisfied smile on the latter’s face. “Coming around, huh?”

“I’m not saying we _need_ to take the kid,” Jason said, “just that maybe, _maybe_ , it’s not the worst idea out there.”

“Look, from what I hear from Seaver, she’s _good_. You and I both know that with the situations we get into, more skill won’t go amiss. If she’s as good as what I’ve been told--”

“She is,” Clay, who was apparently _not_ asleep, cut in. “Seriously. The only reason she wasn’t top of class was a few bull-headed instructors.”

“You’d vouch for her?” Jason asked, turning to Spenser.

“In a heartbeat,” Clay nodded. “She’s damned good, and a real team player.”

“Well, it’d be nice to have one of those,” Bravo 1 said dryly. “The last new guy we took was kind of a pain in the ass.”

“I’m going to choose to ignore that,” Clay said.

“Making a mature decision?” Ray gasped. “That’s a first.” Jason held up a hand and high-fived him, making a face at Clay that made the rookie shake his head, looking slightly like he was regretting his life choices.

“Well, if you’re thinking you’re going to take Hall, you better do it soon,” Blackburn said, and dang it, did anyone on this team actually sleep, or did they just sit around waiting for an opportunity to inject themselves into Jason’s conversations? “Charlie team is about ready to pull the trigger on it.”

“Come on, man, you don’t want to let Beau take Hall,” Ray reasoned.

“I’m not putting her in the field if she’s not ready to go out again,” the team leader said resolutely. “I won’t put her or us in danger.”

“Of course not,” Bravo 2 agreed. “But if she _is_ ready?”

Jason sighed, overruled. Not that he wasn’t coming to see their side, but hell if he was gonna give Ray and Spenser the satisfaction of being--gasp--right. “Then we’ll take her.”

They landed too late to catch Romeo team’s memorial, unfortunately, but they did catch Hall leaving Harrington’s office. Clay immediately went over to her, and the two hugged before sharing a quiet conversation. Jason let the old friends talk amongst themselves for a moment, then decided they could finish catching up later; it looked like they’d be getting plenty of time together to do so.

“Hey, Hall,” he hollered, getting both Grace and Clay’s attention. Looking at the girl up close for the first time, she seemed startlingly young. Not just as young as Clay, but holy-crap-is-this-kid-even-legal level young. He knew she was (twenty-four, according to Blackburn), but dang, Jason had t-shirts older than her. Granted, they were rather ratty shirts that Alana had attempted to stealthily get rid of on several occasions, but still. “You planning on operating again?”

“Yes, sir,” she said immediately. Clay shot Jason an ‘I told you so’ look.

“Would you be interested in doing it with Bravo?” he continued.

She let the faintest trace of a grin cross her face, exchanging a quick glance with Clay, who was not attempting to hide his own smile. “I would, sir.”

“How soon are you going to be ready to come back?”

“Tomorrow work for you?” she said, and Jason admired her dedication, but he also wasn’t a fool or totally uneducated on trauma.

“Alright, hold your horses there, kid. Before you do anything, you’re passing a psych assessment.” It was only Grace’s urge to get back to work that kept her from outright grimacing at that. Clay winced on her behalf, empathetic to the horror that was the psych department. “Even then, if anyone at any time thinks your head isn’t right, you’re sidelined until you pass it again. That clear?”

“Understood,” she said. Jason studied her for a moment, taking in the determined glint in her eyes. Finally, he nodded.

“Great. See you Monday,” he said, and then walked off. Behind him, he heard excited chatter from the young SEALs. If Grace was anything like her friend Clay, Jason was sure he’d end up with a few more headaches in the near future. But if this worked out, and he was more convinced with each passing moment that it would, then a few gray hairs was a small price to pay for another solid, trustworthy team member. The military was a brotherhood, and Bravo was family. And it looked like that family would be gaining one more real soon.


	2. don't you count me out until I'm six feet down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace officially joins Bravo! Of course her first op couldn't possibly be simple, right? Meanwhile, Jason wonders what he did to deserve this, and Clay would just like to get out of this hole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Bones by Anna Graceman.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from S1E12.

Grace’s first day on Bravo felt an awful lot like her first day of high school all over again, or so it seemed as she reflected while getting ready to go. Sure, every ‘class’ was like PE on steroids, ‘tests’ were a matter of life and death, and getting people to like her, or at the very least, trust her, had importance far beyond securing a seat in the cafeteria. But really, it boiled down to the same thing: walking into something new, where her time there could end up being the best or worst of her life.

Thankfully, uniforms spared her from the stress of picking a ‘first-day outfit’ as she did in actual high school. She pulled on a plain black t-shirt and a pair of jeans to wear before changing into the uniform once she arrived. Her roommate, Naomi, passed her a cup of coffee as she sat down at their kitchen table. “Ready?” she asked.

“I think so,” Grace answered. They had just recently moved into their new apartment, in the same complex as Clay and his girlfriend. The timing worked out in the bizarre kind of way that made Grace wonder if the universe had an ironic sense of humor: while adjusting to a new team, she got to return each night to a place that was not quite home yet. Still, fresh starts, even with all the anxiety they brought along, were usually a good thing.

This was the thought process going through her head as she drove to base that morning, the radio providing white noise in the background. She pulled into her usual ‘Romeo 6’ parking spot, feeling a slight pang in her chest at the five empty spaces next to her.

Making her way down the various hallways, she had to deliberately remind herself not to take the path to Romeo’s equipment cages that her brain would lead her to if left on autopilot. Instead, she strode into Bravo’s cages, noting that only Clay had beat her there. They nodded a greeting before Grace opened the door to her new storage space. She’d moved all her stuff the day before in an effort to save time on her first official day, and was happy with that decision now as it gave her time to change clothes and get her things in order before the rest of the team arrived a few minutes later.

“Ah, great, there’s two of them now,” was the first thing Jason said as he walked in. “On time is _on time_ , you two are just dragging yourselves out of bed before you really need to.”

Grace had seen the logical shortfalls of Green Team’s ‘five minutes early is on time, on time is late’ policy, but hadn’t bothered to break herself of that particular habit after graduating. She had two basic modes: five minutes early, or comically late, and the former seemed preferable, so she let it be.

“Nothing wrong with having some time to spare,” Clay shrugged. “Besides, I wanted to welcome Grace before the rest of you clowns showed up.”

“Your faith in us astounds me, Spenser,” Sonny said. “I am a perfect gentleman.” Whether or not he really was, Grace didn’t get to find out, because he and Clay quickly became engaged in a bickering match, disregarding her completely.

“Welcome to Bravo,” Jason said to her.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “I’m glad to be back in business.”

“Good. Now, I know I didn’t say so last time we talked, but we don’t bother too much with following the book to the letter around here,” Bravo 1 told her. “I don’t care if you don’t wear your uniform the exact right way, and it really doesn’t matter to me what you do with your hair as long as it’s out of your face and doesn’t get in the way of a helmet.”

“Got it, sir.” Her answer was delivered stoically, but inside, she was rejoicing. Finally, she didn’t have to spend a ridiculous amount of time wrangling her hair into a picturesque Navy bun every morning.

“And you can stop it with the whole ‘sir’ thing. We just use names.”

“Got it, s--I mean, yeah, sounds good,” Grace nodded. Yeah, Bravo was definitely going to take some getting used to, and getting rid of a few Romeo-forged habits. Jason must’ve seen something in her face, as he backtracked a bit.

“If you want to stick to the formalities, that’s fine,” he assured her. “You won’t get any crap from us for it.”

“No. No, changing things up, it’s, uh, it’s good,” she decided. “I like that it’s a bit different from Romeo.”

“Alright.” Jason looked past her, addressing the team as a whole. “Hey! Grace Hall, Bravo 7.” He pointed to Grace. “O-course, let’s get a move on.”

The next several days consisted of obstacle course runs and drills. Grace would’ve liked to stick close to Clay, but he was almost always up high with Ray. She was a sniper, too, had filled that role on Romeo, but she didn’t mind letting Bravo 2 and 6 take it now. She’d rather not spend an excess amount of time staring through the sight of a rifle anyway. The psychologist she’d done her psych eval with had cleared her, but she still didn’t quite want to test how long she could keep those memories at bay while on overwatch just yet.

Jason had been keeping her nearby for most drills, and she didn’t miss the way he looked for any signs of it all being too much. Really, she thought, he didn’t need to worry. Sure, running drills brought up memories, but only a fraction of them were from her time with Romeo team. She’d been in the Navy long before Romeo; actually, her time there had been a very small portion of her career. Still, it made sense that he’d want to make sure she really was ready to be back in the field.

The obstacle course, in particular, was something that she was quite familiar with, the same one she’d been running since basic training. It was a constant, from her first days in the Navy all the way up to DEVGRU now. Timed runs were nothing new, but side-by-side races were out of the norm. It was never more than a few seconds between any of their times, none as close as the race between Clay and Grace.

Those two had run the course next to each other countless times during BUD/S, constantly switching off for the faster time. Their race now was the same, with Clay finishing the rope climb a few seconds earlier, but Grace making up for lost time in the last sprint. They all but fell through the end of the course, neither of them completely sure if they’d been first.

“It was Spenser’s,” Sonny declared. “By the skin of his teeth.”

“What? No,” Grace argued. “I had that one.” Whether or not she really did, she genuinely didn’t know, but Clay was leading their on-going count of wins by one, so she’d take a victory wherever she could get it.

“No way, princess.” Sonny shook his head. Grace rolled her eyes, her tone light as she addressed the comment.

“What part of this looks like a princess to you?” she smirked, gesturing to her grimy uniform, her tousled hair falling out of its braid, the mud splattered over her hands and face. “I’m running the same O-course as you, in the same uniform as you, with the same dirt on my face as you. If this is what a princess looks like in your mind, you’re a princess too, Sonny.” She clicked her tongue, clapping him on the shoulder.

Before they could decide on a winner, the familiar cacophony of phones dinging simultaneously rang out. “Looks like we’ve got an op,” Jason said, directing them back inside. “Lead the way back, Princess Sonny.”

They slid their phones into their spots outside the briefing room, tugging at their uniforms in an effort to look slightly less disheveled. Grace moved to slide into a chair by the projected graphics, but was pulled away by Sonny.

“Oh, no you don’t, little lady,” he drawled. “The rookie don’t get to sit in the front.”

“Okay, that’s _not_ better than ‘princess’,” she griped. “And fine, I guess?” It wasn’t a rule they’d had back in Romeo, but she accepted it with a shrug of her shoulders. Clay nodded to the open seat next to him. She settled into it, shooting him a quizzical look.

“Don’t sweat it, I don’t really get it either,” he said. “Just be glad you don’t owe them a case of beer yet.”

“What?” she said, but Clay just chuckled. A dark-haired woman--Mandy Ellis, she was informed--and Blackburn took to the front of the room.

“Alright, listen up,” Blackburn said. “The Air Force had a fancy new drone go down about four hours ago in the Anbar Province, just east of the Syrian border.”

“Okay, any chance you’re just keeping us informed here?” Jason asked. It was a fair sentiment; none of them really wanted to be hanging out near Syria right now. Of course, Blackburn announced that they would be retrieving the drone, much to their chagrin.

“Iranian and Russian military are all over that border,” Mandy added. “The Air Force doesn’t want the drone’s proprietary technology falling into the wrong hands.”

“So the Air Force loses a drone in Iraq, where they already have thousands of troops,” Sonny said, making a lap around the table as he spoke. “Instead of sending any of them, they want to send us, all the way from beautiful Virginia Beach. Is that right?” he finished, flopping back into his chair.

“The crash site is just outside of Al Qa’im,” Mandy explained. Honestly, Grace wasn’t against Sonny’s idea to just blow the thing up. It’d save them a lot of trouble. Alas, that plan was vetoed, so they got to go grab the Air Force’s wayward science project. As Mandy continued to detail out the op, Grace was tempted to groan aloud. Of course, her first op back would be a dumpster fire waiting to happen.

“So, we’re walking into the most dangerous place in the world blind,” Jason summarized, and boy did she wish that was an exaggeration. “Some kind of ‘welcome back’ party for you, Grace, huh?”

“Hey, all the more reason to be back,” she shrugged. At the end of the day, whatever the mission, whatever the circumstances, they’d suck it up and get the job done. That was all but the job description, really, and that was what she signed up for. The highest level of ops, with the best of the best. Sure enough, just over an hour later, they were loading up a plane to Iraq, ready to make the mission happen one way or another.

The team made quick work of hanging hammocks in the plane, something that Grace hadn’t realized she’d missed. She climbed into her’s, grinning at the familiar feeling of swaying slightly before racking out for a few hours. Something woke her, but she couldn’t place what it had been, and she’d been asleep long enough that she couldn’t drift off again. Eventually, she decided that if she wasn’t going to sleep again, she may as well move to a bench.

She sat there in silence for a bit before Jason slid down beside her. “Ready?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “It’s been strange to be away from the action.”

“Doesn’t take long to get used to it, does it?” It most certainly did not. Within a few weeks of being on Romeo team, Grace had decided no feeling could match that of being in the field. “I heard you moved in near Clay; you and your girlfriend?”

“Oh, she’s--we’re not dating,” she said. It was a fair mistake, she guessed. “That’s my roommate, Naomi.”

“Old friend, or did you get her off of Craigslist?”

Grace chuckled. “We’ve been friends since high school. We had a place with two other school friends, but they got together and moved out, and we didn’t need all the space to ourselves,” she explained.

“You kept in touch your whole time in the Navy?” Jason asked.

“Yeah. She became a paramedic straight out of high school. It works well; neither of us can really complain about the other having a weird schedule, so the coming and going at all hours of the night and morning isn’t a problem.”

“Good deal. Is there a girlfriend anywhere in the picture?” She hadn’t denied having a girlfriend, just that it wasn’t Naomi.

“No, not right now,” Grace shrugged. “Dating is kinda hard these days with the unpredictable schedule.”

“You’re in a profession where you’re frequently near shirtless guys,” Sonny said from his hammock, “and you’re into ladies?”

“Wow, eavesdrop much?” she said dryly, eyebrows raised.

“Your voices carry,” the Texan waved her off.

“Well, I can appreciate both, thank you,” Grace said. “I’m bi, not that my love life is really any of your business.”

“Huh, remind me to take you to a bar when we get back,” he said. “Introduce you to some fine ladies.”

Jason groaned. “Can’t we get _one_ rookie that you don’t corrupt, Sonny?”

“We don’t all marry our high school sweethearts, Jase,” Sonny shot back.

“You’re married?” Grace repeated, turning the conversation. Jason told her about his wife and kids, pulling a picture out of his pocket. They sat for a little while longer before Bravo 1 told her and Sonny to get some sleep before they landed. Grace settled back into her hammock and attempted to do so, doing her best not to twist around in the restless way that had driven the Romeo guys crazy.

Ah, the Romeo guys. Even after talking to Jason and Sonny, after catching a few more hours of rest, after going over the op with Blackburn and the support team, they were still on her mind. The mission that had cost them their lives was no one’s fault; the intel had seemed solid, the plan was just as solid, and everyone had done what they were supposed to. It was just terrible luck that it happened to be an ambush. She knew this; remembered sitting in their Lieutenant Commander’s office for hours after getting back, still in uniform, not a scratch on her, explaining that very thing. That the op going sideways was no one’s fault, but this one could be.

If something went wrong on this one, Grace had no doubt that it would be on her account. The psychologist had cleared her, she’d convinced Jason that she was ready, and if she couldn’t rely on those two, she could count on herself to know her own mind. By all means, there was nothing stopping her from doing everything that was asked of her on this op, and she knew that, and believed it, she really did.

But she couldn’t get rid of the thoughts creeping in the back of her mind, saying that she’d freeze up, be a liability, get everyone into a situation they wouldn’t make it out of. Wasn’t that what she was doing already, getting lost in aimless soul-searching when she should’ve been getting into the right frame of mind for an op? The brain was a funny thing that way: it had a tendency to create enemies, convince you to fear them, and only once the damage was done would you realize that you were your own downfall all along.

“Hey,” Jason said, walking by where she was sitting against the wall and kicking the sole of her boot. “Get out of your head. Getting lost in there isn’t helping anybody.”

“How did you--?” She didn’t even bother finishing the question. Clay had warned her that attempting to hide anything from Jason was just a waste of time and effort. The man was Bravo 1 for a reason. He knew his stuff about warfare, yes, but he also knew how to lead. He knew his team, even the newest of them.

“What’s going on up there?” Grace shook her head. How could she even begin to explain the labyrinth that was her thought processes sometimes? Half the time it didn’t make sense even to her, putting it into words was another battle entirely.

“I know I’m ready,” she said. “I just can’t stop thinking, you know, what if I’m not?”

“If you weren’t ready, there wouldn’t be any ‘what if’s to think of,” he said. “Fifteen minutes. Gear up.”

Less than an hour later, crouching beside her teammates, Grace had to agree with Clay: Al Qa’im really did look like a ghost town. “Ghosts don’t wear S-vests,” came Jason’s voice over the comms, and wasn’t that the truth.

“Speaking of ghosts,” Sonny began, “I had an experience with the paranormal when I was a kid. A summer spent with my grand-ninny--”

“Excuse me, your _what_?” Ray cut in.

“Ghosts don’t exist, Sonny,” Grace said.

“Well excuse me, Miss Hall, can you _prove_ that?” Sonny challenged.

“No, but I certainly hope they don’t. We have enough to worry about with people that are alive, don’t we?” Before anyone could answer, someone yelled ‘incoming’ and they all hit the deck as an explosion rang out.

From there, they were on the move. That feeling was back, the rush of adrenaline, the intense focus. Nothing mattered but the mission, getting from point A to B and watching the person in front of her’s six. Nothing else mattered...until Ray came over comms to let them know that Clay had fallen into the cellar of the building. “He’s only rolled with us a few times,” Ray said. “I’d feel a whole lot better if it was me down there.”

“Look, you made the right choice,” Jason assured him, and Grace agreed. She knew Clay better than any of them, knew his skill and his instinct and, above all, his sheer stubbornness would keep him alive. Clay would be fine. He’d be fine, as long as Grace and the rest of them did their jobs. She secured the school and kept guard next to Jason as the straps looked the drone over. She forced herself to cast Clay out of her mind for the time being; to trust that he’d be fine and do her part to make sure of it. When Ray announced that he couldn’t raise Bravo 6 on comms, she just accepted the information and tried not to worry. His radio must have been busted in the fall, they had no reason to believe anything else.

And then they did. “Bravo 1, we’ve got a big problem, boss,” Ray said. “I count three armed men directly above Bravo 6’s position.”

“Is Spenser still safe?” Jason asked.

“Well, no one’s jumping up and down like they won the lottery, so I’m gonna say yes for now,” Ray answered. “I can engage and take them out before they get to him, but I got no way of knowing how many more guys are down there.”

“No, hold on that, gunfight would just wake up the neighborhood.”

“Copy that, holding.” Grace followed Jason, who informed the rest of the team of the update. Sonny immediately insisted that they had to go get Clay, and she backed him on that.

“Okay, we’ll get him,” Jason agreed. He caught Blackburn up on the situation, bristling when the General interjected.

“We can’t just _leave_ him here,” Grace exclaimed. “Alpha can take care of the drone, we have to get Clay.” Sonny parroted her sentiments, adding a jab or two about cake-eaters. Jason walked past them, quickly interfering with the straps to hurry the process along.

Not even two minutes later he and Sonny emerged, the latter holding a saw and looking very pleased with himself. He turned to Jason. “Boss, we aren’t seriously leaving the kid in a hole, are we?”

“If there are more tangos in there, he could be in serious trouble,” Grace added.

“Alright, cool it, you two,” Bravo 1 said. “We’re going back for him. Blackburn knows, he and Davis are covering for us with the General.” Of course, nothing could just go right, so when Ray notified them of Clay’s warning, and they had to abort, she was barely even surprised.

“It’s like they’re coming out of nowhere,” Ray said.

“Remember in Mosul, when the enemy was coming out of nowhere?” Jason responded. Now, Grace didn’t know exactly what happened in Mosul, probably couldn’t even point the place out on a map, but she did know where this could be going.

“Tunnels,” she said.

“Five points to the kid,” Jason muttered. Sure enough, Mandy found them a tunnel entrance almost immediately. The dog led the way, the rest following closely. Bullets were flying, one nearly too close for comfort; Grace swore she could feel it graze the fabric of her sleeve. It was an adrenaline high like no other, a calm that could come only in the midst of chaos.

They moved closer to Clay’s location, taking out a few tangos on the way. One nearly got the jump on Grace, slamming her into a wall as she turned the corner. She quickly got a shot off before he could do anything else, and he almost took her down with him as he fell.

“Bravo 7!” Jason shouted. She blinked a few times, clearing the dust from her eyes and the clouds from her mind. Clear head, she reminded herself. Don’t think about what just happened, just keep moving.

“Right here,” she answered, pushing off against the wall. “I’m alive. I’m good.”

“I believe the first one, I’m not so sure about the second part,” Bravo 1 said. “That was a hard hit. Your head okay?”

“Yeah. Let’s go get Clay,” she said. Jason nodded, and they kept moving towards the cellar Clay had fallen into. The rest of the team took out the last few hostiles, clearing the room before they focused on the gaping hole in the floor. Jason reached a hand down, pulling a slightly worse for wear Bravo 6 up. As soon as he was within reach, Grace grabbed his other hand and helped drag him the rest of the way. They set him down on some crates against the wall, noting the blood coming from his leg. “Look at you, man, you look like crap,” Jason said. “Way to blow the overwatch, kid.”

“Yeah, he stinks, too,” Sonny added. Grace could only laugh, catching her breath as the adrenaline wore off.

“Oh, it’s great to see you guys too, man. Appreciate that,” Clay said. He was still panting, coated in dirt and dust.

“Glad you’re okay,” Grace said, clumsily putting her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go home, huh?” She felt the familiar cold sweat of coming down from an adrenaline high, shaking a bit as relief took over.

They made it back to exfil in one piece, collapsing down in the helo. She didn’t even know how she made it to the plane, practically ready to pass out by that point. Lying down in her hammock, she saw Clay out like a light in his own hammock, Jason sharing a beer with Mandy, and everyone else milling around. Just as she went to close her eyes, someone shook her shoulder, eliciting a groan.

“What?” she said, trying her best not to bite the head off of the person who dared to force her to sit up when all she wanted to do was sleep until they were back home.

“Heard you got your bell rung pretty good.” It was Trent, armed with a penlight and the med kit. “You doing alright? Any nausea, headache?”

“Nope,” she answered. Jason, who was the only one that had witnessed her brief skirmish and thus, responsible for this disruption, meandered over.

“Know the first few letters of the alphabet backwards?” Trent asked.

“I know the _entire_ alphabet backwards.” She did. It was one of her favorite ways to impress younger cousins and nieces or nephews.

“Alright, showoff, we just need the first three,” Jason said.

“The first three, or the last three?” Like, the first three letters of the alphabet but backwards, or the whole alphabet backwards but just the first three? It was really a vague request, if you thought about it.

“Grace! Just say the damn ABCs in reverse,” Bravo 1 said, exasperated. Hey, this is what they got for demanding anything of her in this sleep-deprived state.

“Z-Y-X-W-V-U-T-S-R-Q--can I be done now?”

Trent rolled his eyes, apparently quite used to exhausted sailors. “Yeah, sure--hey wait, where did that blood come from?”

“What blood?” Oh hey, there was blood staining her sleeve. Was it her’s? It didn’t hurt, it couldn’t be her’s. But where else did it come from? Trent prodded at it, and oh crap, yeah, now it hurt. “Shit. Yeah, that might be a bullet graze?”

“What the hell, Hall?” Well, that’s one way to get everyone’s attention.

“When we first went into the building,” she explained. “A bullet got real close, but I didn’t feel it hit me, so I assumed I was fine.”

“You mean when we went into the building an _hour_ ago?” Jason had to walk away. He charged back over not five seconds later. “How do you not notice a bullet hitting you?”

Grace shrugged. “Adrenaline, I guess? It only grazed me.” Jason just alternated between staring at her in disbelief and shaking his head as Trent wrapped a bandage around her arm.

Finally, they let her sleep, though it was significantly harder now that her arm had decided to freaking _hurt_. Trent had given her some sort of painkiller, but it was taking its sweet time to take effect. Thankfully, the pain soon faded to a dull ache, and sleep claimed her not long after.

It was just Jason left on the plane when he woke her up. She nearly face planted onto the plane’s floor, forgetting that she couldn’t just roll out of a hammock. That did not help her case, but she did eventually manage to negotiate (read: argue) her way into going home without getting medical attention. “Paramedic roommate, remember? Free health care, basically.” It was only thanks to Jason’s own exhaustion and the fact that Clay was worse off than her that she somehow got away with it. Jason stalked off to check on Clay after making Grace promise one more time that she really was okay, muttering about making her run hills for the rest of her enlistment.

A few hours, a couple medical examinations, and one unanticipated proposal later, Clay was ready to go home. Stella, who was still technically not his next of kin, wasn’t allowed to stay past ‘visiting hours’, so Jason stayed behind to give him a ride while Stella went out to bring food back to their apartment.

His phone dinged as he changed into civilian clothes. Grace. _Hey_ , was all it said.

 _Hi_ , he texted back. _Heard you got grazed. How are you?_

 _About that_...came the next text. After that was a longer message. _Paramedic roommate did not like my plan. Apparently I ‘am an idiot’ and ‘need to go to the hospital’. So I’m there now, good to leave, finally. But she’s on shift and they won’t let me leave by myself. Any chance my favorite neighbors could give me a ride?_

_Of course._

Grace was pretty much going stir-crazy by the time Clay got there. She expected to see Stella with him, given that his leg had been bleeding a few hours earlier so driving wasn’t really possible, but she was waiting in the car, it would seem.

“Hey there,” she said as Clay strode into her room. She was already out of the hospital gown, wearing shorts and a hoodie. “Thanks for getting me.”

“No problem. Wouldn’t have had to if you’d just gotten looked at on base, though,” he pointed out. She shrugged and yawned, grabbing her phone from the nightstand.

“And miss out on a hospital dinner?” she joked.

“Oh, trust me, the base has got bad hospital food, too,” Clay assured her.

“Glad to hear it.” They left the plain white room, strolling down the hall. “Hey, uh, we don’t have to tell Jason about this, do we?”

“Yeah, about that…” Clay looked over at her sheepishly. She glared, throwing her arms out in a ‘WTF’ gesture. “He was my ride home! It was tell him or leave you here.”

They turned the corner into the waiting room, and came face to face with an unhappy Bravo 1. Grace may have cursed under her breath. Blame it on the painkillers.

“Maybe we listen to Trent next time, huh?” Jason said, and dang, Grace pitied his kids a bit in that moment. He had the disapproving gaze down to a science.

“Or just don’t tell the paramedic roommate,” she suggested, and then immediately regretted it when the look somehow became even more disapproving. Yeah, she usually wouldn’t say that out loud. And were those finger guns accompanying the statement? The doctor may have had a point about the whole ‘concussion’ thing.

“Get in the car before I give you a reason to stay here.”

“Yep. Car. Going.” She followed Clay out to Jason’s truck, letting her friend take the shotgun seat. It’d be harder to glare at her in the backseat.

Still in the waiting room, Jason looked up at the sky and wondered why the universe couldn’t give him just one rookie with any sense of self-preservation at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, there's Chapter 2! Disclaimer, the last bit of that was written around 4am this morning, but thankfully concussed Grace sounds a lot like sleep-deprived me, so it all worked out. Thank you for reading, and for the wonderful reception to the first chapter, it means the world to me.


	3. heaven only knows if we'll make it back with all our fingers and our toes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Bravo prepares for deployment, life on the home front isn't any simper for Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Brother by Kodaline

With time, Grace’s concussion healed, as did the bullet graze on her arm. What didn’t fade quite as quickly was Jason’s frustration with her apparent lack of common sense. Still, aside from that, she was acclimating to Bravo about as well as she could hope. She was still the ‘new kid and would be for a while, but at least it was a title that she shared with Clay.

Now, they were getting ready for their first deployment with the team. At the moment, their understanding was that they were going to Afghanistan, but then again, they never really knew until the plane landed. She remembered her first ever deployment, the anxious anticipation and, to a lesser extent, the element of adventure, that led up to it. Those months overseas had undeniably brought her closer with the teammates she traveled with. But the true danger of deployments had sunk in over the years, as well as the toll it took on her friends and family back home.

“Hey,” Clay said, taking a seat next to her in the briefing room. They switched off for first to arrive every day, though the rest of the unit still didn’t understand why they bothered. It wasn’t like they gained anything from those extra five minutes, but still, they did it. Old habits died hard, especially when they didn’t see any real reason to try to break said habits.

“Hi,” she greeted. “Beat you here again. What’s that make this, the third day in a row?”

“Eh, I’m still leading by at least ten days, so I’m good.”

“So that was your master plan, huh?” Grace narrowed her eyes. “Sell me out to Jason, letting me nearly die from running hills for two weeks, so you could pull ahead?”

“Hey, I bought drinks after that!” Clay defended himself.

“Uh-huh. Hey, it’s all good. Not like you never pulled anything stupid back in BUD/S or Green Team, right? Like that one time--”

“So, uh,” Clay said, searching for literally any other subject to bring up, “what’s new with the paramedic roommate?”

Grace chuckled. “You can just call her Naomi, you know. It’s not like you two haven’t met before.” It was true. Naomi had come by the bar with Grace a few times and was well-liked by the team. Part of that was due to her unique ability to supply them with embarrassing stories from when Grace was young, but mostly, it was simply because she was an agreeable person.

Naomi had been a good friend of hers since freshman year, but after moving away and joining the Navy, she’d become Grace’s only link to their hometown. They’d both left home just after graduating, forgoing college and jumping straight into their respective careers. Neither of them knew anyone else who’d grown up with them that had taken that same path. Early on, it often felt like no one else understood but the other; two kids who didn’t really know what they were doing, but knew they had to do it regardless. Even now, when things got especially tough, that effortless connection was one of the few things Grace could fall back on. She genuinely didn’t know what she’d do without her roommate and best friend.

“True, I guess I have,” her teammate said. “I didn’t hit it off with her like Jason did, though,” he joked. Now _that_ had been a sight to see. For at least fifteen minutes those two had talked, occasionally laughing at something no one else could hear. Grace was certain that at least half of that conversation was just them ranting over the stupidity of the concussion incident. She was also fairly certain that she’d caught the two texting the other day, and damn, that was a terrifying concept.

“Don’t remind me,” she muttered. “But yeah, she’s good.”

“Why did that sound weird?” Clay asked.

“It didn’t,” she protested.

“No, something is definitely up,” he argued. “I know you, I know your fake ‘everything is fine’ voice.” Grace wanted to shoot back that Clay had a similar tone of his own, but before she could go down that rabbit hole, Ray interrupted them.

“Something’s up with Grace?” he repeated, then turned to her. “I swear to God, Hall, if you’re ignoring an injury again, Jason and Trent will skin you alive, and I will let them,” he threatened.

“No, it’s not like that,” she sighed. “That was _one time_ , let it go.”

“It was one time too many, and you’re deflecting,” Ray said. “What’s happening?”

“It’s no big deal,” Grace said, but it sounded resigned. She hesitated, watching the last few members of the team trickle into the room. “Naomi and her girlfriend are just getting really serious.”

“And that’s bad because…?” Clay said.

“Because her girlfriend is--how do I say--not my favorite person, we’ll leave it at that.”

“We will _not_ leave it at that,” Bravo 2 declared. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing’s _wrong_ with her. Well, not majorly. I just don’t like her.”

“Don’t like her for Naomi, or straight up don’t like her? You could always say something to Naomi if she’s that bad.”

“I don’t know, I just don’t like her, okay? She’s just...always in our apartment, even after Naomi has, like, sixteen hour shifts. And she doesn’t invest herself much with Naomi’s career, or her friends, as far as I can tell. I don’t think she’s met her family yet, and they’ve been going for close to a year now. Plus, she ate my cereal once.”

Clay and Ray winced. “Oh, she didn’t,” the blonde hissed. “I’m surprised she’s still alive.”

Grace had a very specific post-mission ritual. She drove home, or Naomi met her at the airstrip after long ops or deployments, and she ate a bowl of cereal. The same cereal, every single time. She made sure to always have a box on hand, saved only for those occasions. It was the only labelled item in their shared pantry, marked by a post-it note with Grace’s name on it. It was a tradition as sacred as that of the SEALs themselves; a ritual that had never once been neglected or forgotten as long as Grace had been in the Navy.

Until, that is, Grace came home from an op to find Lindsay sitting at the counter, finishing off the box. She’d tensely asked where she’d gotten the cereal, desperately hoping it hadn’t been the last of her stash in the pantry. But alas, it was, and so an infuriatingly unconcerned Lindsay had found herself facing a pissed off, _hungry_ SEAL only barely bothering to keep her anger contained. Naomi had quickly stepped in to diffuse the situation, making it out to be an innocent mistake due to the post-it falling off, and Grace had been forced to settle for drinks with the team instead.

“If she weren’t Naomi’s girlfriend, she might not be,” Grace said, a steel in her voice reserved only for terrorists, and those who interfered with her post-op cereal.

Clay whistled. “We all know what happens to those that get in the way of your precious Lucky Charms,” he said, making a face at Grace’s cereal of choice.

“Excuse me, I am not fighting through warzones to come home to a cereal that doesn’t have marshmallows in it, Spenser,” she glared.

“Listen up,” Blackburn cut them off. “Before you guys ship out, we’re going to go over all the details as we presently know them.” For the next hour, they broke down where the team was expected to be deployed, how long they’d be needed, and what types of missions they’d be running. After a fair bit of questioning and some colorful complaints (mostly from Sonny, to absolutely no one’s surprise), they ran out of things to discuss. “Well then, if no one has anything else, you’re free to go.” As they gathered their things, Blackburn got their attention one more time. “Oh, and Grace, for post-op food, if we’re going to go the cereal route, I’d personally go with Cap’n Crunch.”

“With the berries, or without?” Brock wondered, asking the important questions.

“Without,” Blackburn said, “obviously.”

“All due respect,” Grace said, looking like she meant not a word of it, “that’s messed up.”

“Alright, get out of here,” he said, waving them off. “I don’t have to take this.”

Bravo filed out of the conference room, happy to have some free time. Almost all of them had pre-deployment check-lists to sort out: superstitions, traditions, or just some simple time with their loved ones. Grace still had to call her parents, but she was putting that off until later, not quite ready for that three-hour--at _minimum_ \--conversation yet.

Instead, she drove off towards a diner she’d found when she first moved out here right after finishing school. It was usually just busy enough for the background chatter to be comforting, but not overwhelming.

It was a favorite spot of her and Naomi’s, their go-to for a quick lunch that fit into Grace’s break and before Naomi’s shift. The perfect place, in short, for Grace to take Ray’s advice and bridge the topic of Lindsay.

She’d be subtle, ask how the girlfriend was doing, throw in a ‘how did you two meet, again?’ or a ‘what made you decide to ask her out; it was a good story, wasn’t it?’ before making her way into ‘are you sure she’s the one?’.

Naomi got there just after her, grinning as she waved her over. “Hi!” “Hey, how was work?” she asked.

“Good, I’ve got the rest of the day off. You?”

“Twelve hours, one to one.” Grace winced. She knew a thing or two about odd work hours, but being _scheduled_ to get done in the early hours of the morning was still an undesirable concept in her mind.

The conversation was idle at first: work, mutual friends, even the weather. Yes, they had become adults making small talk about the weather, and it sort of killed them both on the inside, but that was beside the point. The cause of their unimaginative chatter was the real point of their lunch. Grace had something on her mind, something she fully intended to voice, hopefully in a way that would avoid the potential awkwardness and, unbeknownst to her, Naomi had her own breaking news to share.

Of course, years of friendship had an oddly synchronizing effect, for better or worse, and so they both prepared to say their piece at the same time. “So, uh, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Grace said with her best attempt at sounding casual, leg bouncing beneath the table.

“Oh, I actually have something on my mind,” Naomi said. “Mind if I go first?”

“Yeah, uh, go ahead.” Any chance the fates would align and this announcement would eliminate the need for Grace’s? No? She didn’t think so.

“I’m gonna propose to Lindsay,” she said, grinning wide. “Sometime next week, over a nice dinner. What do you think?”

Grace’s eyes went wide, at a loss for a suitable response. “Um. Wow. Uh...that’s, wow, Naomi. Well, congratulations. I’m glad you like her so much.”

“I really do,” her friend said, a sappy smile on her face that Grace usually would’ve good-naturedly made fun of.

“That’s good. I’m happy for you.” She really was. Naomi was an amazing friend, the best she could ever ask for. She was full of dry wit that cracked Grace up, understanding, sometimes shockingly so, and smart beyond belief. She was constantly doing sweet things for their friends, things that Grace never would have thought of, and did it all so nonchalantly.

Naomi had always been the type of outgoing, inviting person that others flocked to, Grace included. Grace couldn’t think of how many people had admitted to having crushes on her friend in high school. It made sense; that personality, plus her looks, made her almost unfairly easy to be attracted to. The young sailor knew her friend would find someone she loved sooner or later. She had plenty of options. And she deserved it, too. She was an amazing friend; she deserved to be happy. She deserved someone who would make her happy. The problem was that Grace didn’t think that Lindsay was that someone.

“I’m happy for you,” she said again. “It’s just...aren’t you moving a bit fast?”

“I don’t think so, no,” Naomi frowned. “It’s not like there’s a _right_ and a _wrong_ way to do this sort of thing.”

“No, of course not,” Grace said immediately. “But you two have only been together for, what is it, ten months now?”

“That’s nearly a year,” her friend pointed out. “We both know people who dated for less and ended up just fine. Great, even.”

“I know. Isn’t it just better to take it slow and enjoy each step than to rush into something before you know for sure, though?”

“I _do_ know for sure. Where did this come from?”

“Nowhere in particular,” Grace shrugged. “I’ve just always known you to be more of the ‘slow and steady’ type. That’s what I was going to say, that you seem like you’re moving really fast with Lindsay.”

“I’m moving fast because there’s no point in going slow when we’re both all-in,” Naomi said, matter-of-factly. “You’ve never been slow-moving either,” she pointed out.

“No,” Grace conceded, “but I’m not looking for marriage right now. That’s a huge step.”

“I know. I do. But I really love her.”

Why did that hurt to hear? That’s how Grace knew this was wrong; that twisting feeling in her gut. An instinct, telling her that her best friend was going to get hurt. Then again, she’d always been protective of her loved ones, maybe more so than she needed to be. If Naomi loved Lindsay, then she’d propose. And if Lindsay loved her back, and Grace had no reason to think she didn’t, she’d say yes. And on the off chance that it all fell to pieces, well, then Grace would help put her friend back together.

“I’m glad,” she smiled softly. “I just didn’t want to see you get hurt, is all. I’m happy for you. Make sure the wedding is after I get back, alright?”

Naomi beamed, and that made it worth it. “Of course. How long till you leave, again?”

“It’s a week from--” Her phone beeped, cutting her off. Most of her contacts were kept on silent, if there was an audible alert, then it was most certainly work-related.

“Spun up?” Naomi asked.

“I don’t know,” Grace frowned. “It’s from Jason. Just says to get to base, not that we’re getting spun up.”

“You’d better go then, huh?” It was unfortunate timing, but not unprecedented.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ll talk to you soon as I can.” They hugged quickly, Grace left some money for the bill even though she knew Naomi wouldn’t use it, and then she was off.

She pulled up at the base not fifteen minutes later, making her way to the conference room. Slipping her phone into its slot outside the room per usual, she waited for the rest of the team to arrive. Jason walked in with Blackburn; apparently they’d both been there for awhile. If this wasn’t a mission, it was surely something big. And if it was big, it probably wasn’t good.

After the briefing was over and plans were made, Naomi was the first one Grace called the second she grabbed her phone.

She picked up on the first ring. “Hey, everything okay?”

“Uh, no, actually.” Realizing how that sounded, she quickly backtracked. “I’m okay, we’re all fine. Um, Echo team, the ones who were in Afghanistan…”

“Yeah?” Naomi prompted.

“They were killed in action. All of them.”

Naomi sucked in a breath. “Oh my God. That’s awful.”

“Yeah, it really is. Bravo is going to Echo 1, Steve Porter, we’re going to his house to help his wife and kids.”

“Text me the address, I’ll meet you there.”

“You really don’t have to,” Grace argued. “You have work.”

“I’ll call out,” Naomi said immediately. “This is important. I want to be there.”

“Thank you.” The simple words didn’t convey just how much the gesture meant, not to mention how much it was probably going to be needed. “And, um, there’s more.”

“What is it?”

“They moved our deployment up. We’ve got eighteen hours.”

Her friend didn’t say anything for a moment. “Wow,” was all she came up with. “Well, then I’m definitely meeting you there.”

“Thank you,” she said again.

“Of course.” They hung up, Grace typing in the address and sending it. Most of the team had left by this point, except for Jason, who was exiting the room as Grace put her phone away.

“Hey,” he said, “you okay?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. Well, no, that wasn’t true. Obviously. “I mean, I’m shocked. But, you know, I’ll be fine.”

“You know any of them?”

“No.” She could maybe point one or two of them out in the halls--no, she couldn’t. She _could have_. But not anymore. “Did you?”

“I was pretty close with Steve, yeah. Our daughters are friends.” Grace nodded, scraping one shoe against a fleck of dirt on the other, very deliberately not meeting Jason’s searching gaze. She’d pass on the soul-searching, thank you. “You know, what we saw in there, it’s a lot like what happened to Romeo. I’m sure that’s going through your head right now, so, I’ll ask again. You okay?”

“I think so,” Grace said honestly. “Romeo team...it wasn’t an explosion. This was an explosion. Maybe that’s stupid, but it’s what I’m holding onto. That was the hard part. But this part...I can do this part.”

“You had some practice with this part,” Bravo 1 pointed out.

“Yeah. Right after, and then again at the funeral, it was like everyone had this checklist of people to talk to. The wives, the kids, and then me. Like we were all on the same level. But really, I knew those guys for all of two months. I still forgot their first names from time to time. I’d only just started to get to know them.”

“You were there, though. You saw it happen. Doesn’t matter how well you knew them; seeing that happen to anybody is rough.” He spoke from experience, and Grace could tell.

“I dealt with it,” she said. She had. She was cleared to be in the field, after all.

“I don’t think anyone really _stops_ dealing with it.”

“No, probably not,” she agreed. “I’m dealing with it, then.”

“Good.” Jason said.

“You know, I didn’t expect this team to be so…” she searched for the right words. “I mean, asking about my roommate, and texting randomly, and checking in on stuff like this.”

“Clay said something similar on his first op,” the master chief recalled. “Like I said to him, my job is to lead this team. That’s not just planning ops and busting down doors, that’s knowing about your families and partners and, in some cases, roommates. Telling certain team members to quit texting memes at two in the morning. And checking in on things like this.”

“I think that’s a good thing,” Grace smiled.

“Yeah. And you’ll see more of it today. The way the Navy rallies around families, it’s amazing. Speaking of which, we should get going.”

Grace nodded, making her way to the parking lot and climbing into her car. It was old, the same one she’d had since high school, actually. It was getting a little worn down, indicating that it was probably time to look into a new one, but it still got her where she needed to go. Maybe the reason she held onto it was for days like this, as it let her pretend she was back in her hometown, driving to school or practice, and not to the home of a man who’d died in the same place she’d be the next day.

As soon as the Porters’ home was within view, she knew she’d have to walk a bit. The driveway was completely full, as was much of the street by it. She passed Naomi’s car as she walked up to the door. Her friend didn’t appear right away, so she made her way to the kitchen in search of the familiar face.

“Grace!” came a voice from behind her. She swiveled around to find her roommate in front of a table covered in various dishes. “Hey.”

“Hi,” she said, eyebrows raised, taking in the vast array of meals. “You made yourself busy already, huh?”

“Yeah. Stella had been on casserole duty, but she went to talk to Clay, so I took over,” the paramedic explained. Sure enough, Clay and his girlfriend could be spotted whispering to each other over by the coffee machine.

“Sorry you got caught up in all this,” Grace said. “It must be a bit weird, especially since you got here before me.”

“I mean, I don’t really know anyone here aside from your team,” Naomi pointed out, “but it’s okay. There are more important things right now.”

“I don’t really know anyone aside from the team either,” the young SEAL admitted.

That got a small laugh from Naomi. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. I do feel like the _only_ person here who’s not a soldier or dating one, though.”

“Eh, emergency contact is close enough,” Grace shrugged. “And we’re sailors, actually.”

“Shoot, I know that,” her friend shook her head. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s a really common mistake.”

“Still, it’s been, what, six years now? I shouldn’t keep forgetting,” she argued.

“I once forgot you under a table for half an hour,” Grace deadpanned. “We’re even.”

“Okay, we were five at the time.” Her friend struggled not to burst out laughing at the old memory. “Hide-And-Seek can be an intense game. Shit happens in the heat of the moment.”

“We left you under a _table_ for _half an hour_ ,” she repeated, breaking out in a matching grin. “Heat of the moment doesn’t cover thirty entire minutes.”

“What are you two giggling about?” Ray asked, sneaking up behind them.

“Just some old memories. We were real troublemakers as five-year-olds.”

“You were,” Naomi corrected. “ _I_ was napping under a table.”

“Wait, I thought you said you met in high school,” Bravo 2 said.

“No, we’ve been close since high school,” Grace corrected. “We went to different middle schools, but we were in Girl Scouts together as little kids.”

“You were a Girl Scout?” Ah shoot. Maybe she shouldn’t have opened this can of worms.

“Yeah, we both were.” All she could do was desperately hope that he didn’t ask for pictures. “All through grade school. We were in the same troop our first year.”

“Wow. So you’ve really got all sorts of young Grace stories, don’t you, Naomi?” Ray smiled evilly. “We’ll have to be in touch when we get back from Afghanistan.”

“I’ll tell you embarrassing stories about Clay in BUD/S if you _don’t_ do that.” Grace didn’t hesitate to use any bargaining tool necessary. Some stories belonged in the past.

“Oh, I’ll be getting those stories, too,” he promised.

The woman beside him smacked his arm. “I thought you were supposed to be the mature one,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“I’m a man of many layers. Grace, Naomi, this is Naima, my wife,” he introduced, gesturing to his spouse.

“Nice to meet you,” Grace said, leaning past Naomi to shake hands. “I’m Grace Hall.”

“So good to finally meet you,” Naima smiled warmly. “I’ve heard a lot about you. And you must be Naomi?”

“That’s me,” Naomi said, shaking hands as Grace had. “Nice to meet you.”

“So, you’ve been friends since high school?” she asked. They both nodded. “Wow! How long have you been together?”

“Oh! Uh--” Before either of them could correct her, Grace and Ray’s phones went off, as did others around them. They looked at each other before grabbing the devices out of their pockets. They knew what the alert was, there was really only one thing it could be, but part of them wanted to stay in this moment for a little while longer. It was tragic, sure, and stifling and sad, but at least it was safe. After this, they wouldn’t be able to say that and mean it for another three months.

Still, just as they had every time before, they reached for their phones. Their eyes scanned the message, sighing before looking back at the others.

“Time?” Naima asked.

“Yeah,” they said softly. The two locked eyes with the rest of Bravo. Almost as one, they rose from their seats and moved from their posts, congregating in the driveway as their families trailed after them.

“Here we go,” was all Grace could think to say.

“Everyone got their bags?” Jason asked gruffly. When no one said otherwise, he nodded. “Alright. Let’s go.”

The drive back to base passed in a blur of silence for Grace and Naomi, occasionally glancing at each other only to look back at the road or out the window. It wasn’t a tense silence or a stalemate, just a lack of words to say.

Before either of them were ready, Naomi was pulling into a parking space. They got out at the same moment, Grace going to the trunk to retrieve her bag. She saw Clay with Stella, and Jason with his wife and kids. Ray was hugging his daughter, Trent kissing his girlfriend. For a moment, she felt out of place, a little bit like an awkward kid standing there with her best friend while everyone else kissed their loved ones goodbye. But then she looked back at Naomi, and she knew there was no one she’d rather be there with.

They wordlessly reached for each other, locking into a tight hug. There was a difference, Grace thought, between thinking of three months, counting it in weeks or days, marking it on a calendar, and standing here now, realizing how long it would be before they had a moment like this again. Time was just time: hours and minutes and seconds. It was what they were leaving behind that gave that time meaning, made it difficult. Made three months feel like eternity.

But this was a reality she’d long ago accepted. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Naomi would go to work, go out with friends, spend time with her girlfriend. Get engaged, Grace remembered with a start. And she would spend the coming months running ops, passing time, and missing home in between.

Grace loved her job. It was the only thing she could imagine herself doing, and she fought like hell to get there. But in that moment, when it was time to go, it wasn’t patriotism or dedication to her work that allowed her to let go. Maybe it was selfish, but getting onto that plane, the only way she could leave was knowing the moment that would come when they returned. Another plane, another hug, another car ride, but this time, a reunion.

Sometimes the only thing allowing you to leave was the anticipation of coming back.

So Grace trailed behind her teammates as they boarded the plane. They settled onto benches, some listening to music, some looking at books or at pictures, some simply staring at nothing and thinking. Leaving for deployment was never easy, and having their last few days with their families cut short felt a bit like having a rug pulled out from under them.

They sat quietly, steadily moving farther and farther away from their home. Eventually, their minds all drifted back to Echo team. They had work to do, and they wouldn’t be coming back until they got it done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is! The end of the third chapter and the halfway point of this fic. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for the wonderful reception to my previous chapters; it means the world to me.
> 
> Let me know what you think so far in the comments!
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	4. oh why can i not conquer love?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deployment begins, but even from the other side of the world, Virginia Beach still manages to throw a curveball or two at Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what? I'm not dead! Yeah, sorry for the delay, my brain quit on me. So, originally, this update and the next were going to be one massive chapter with all sorts of drama and action. Well, I got the drama taken care of, but the action just wasn't coming, 'cause Writer's Block is a...well, you know. But I felt bad for waiting so long, so, here's this for now!
> 
> Chapter title from Elastic Heart by Sia, 'cause am I really a fanfic writer if I don't use a lyric from that song in at least one fic?

The funny thing about Afghanistan was that it didn’t really feel like Afghanistan at all. It didn’t feel like the war-torn, unstable nation Grace had been briefed on time and time again. After a while, each new, increasingly dangerous place they traveled to seemed the same. There never came a moment of revelation, of clarity when it all sank in. She didn’t lie in bed thinking of herself as a little tack on a map, planted on the frontline of the war against terror, on the other side of the world from her home. No, she laid in a bed that was obviously not her own, but really, no different than any of the other beds, or cots, or hammocks she’d crashed on over the years.

Afghanistan didn’t feel like how one would imagine Afghanistan felt, but that didn’t mean it felt like home, either. There was no mistaking the hot, monotonous, nondescript base they’d spend the next three months on for Virginia Beach. Most of their nights were interrupted by ops that had to be run, while days were spent planning out said missions. How the time in between was filled was left up to them.

Some of the team liked to fight for control of the one gaming system on base, but Grace would never understand the appeal of their games of choice. They already fought for their lives and shot at people with lives they’d never know about for a living, there just didn’t seem to be much of a point in doing it again digitally, in Grace’s mind. She spent much of her time outside, joining pick-up games of basketball, shooting hockey pucks, tossing around a football, or sometimes just running aimlessly simply for the sake of doing _something_.

Of course, she made time to Skype with Naomi as often as she could. She did her best to be mindful of her roommate’s work schedule, and her personal life, but really, whenever she had free time her first instinct was to call her friend. They spoke whenever they could find time, but it still never felt like enough. As soon as Grace was free, Naomi would be working a twelve hour shift followed by a night out, and by the time she could return the call, Grace would be on a mission or prepping for one. Then there was a mission that had gone sideways, and while the team had been spared from any major or even particularly inconvenient injuries, Grace had wound up with a violently colored bruise overtaking her face, the size and coloring of which surprised even Grace herself. She’d figured it was best to avoid Skyping until that cleared up, lest she frighten her roommate.

Which led her to the moment when she was following her team into an abandoned building, guns raised, voices raised even higher. Honestly, it felt like little more than a drill, albeit one with higher stakes than usual. Or maybe it wasn’t even a drill, she thought as she reported to Bravo 1 over comms. “Negative, Bravo 1.” Shocker. Not a drill, more like little kids playing pretend. Playing a game, a _losing_ game, because you can’t win a game on the wrong board with one of the pieces missing.

Still, she went through the motions like the rest of them, yelling out their target’s name and demanding to know if anyone had his location. They didn’t. Again, shocker.

“I’m confused,” Sonny said on the ride back to base. “So, we’re faking raids to make it look like we’re searching for a sniper that’s already dead?”

“Yes, Abu Ali,” Ray confirmed. Jason explained the tactical reasoning for the staged raids, exchanging a few jokes with Sonny and the interpreter they’d snatched up for the umpteenth time that week.

“Hey, I’m good with this,” Grace cracked. “It’s safer than a real raid, and we get paid the same. Win-win,” she shrugged, though internally, she was going just a bit (read: majorly) stir-crazy with the lack of action.

“Ah, but what good is the money when we inevitably die of boredom?” Sonny drawled.

“Ooh, ‘inevitably’,” Clay parroted. “That’s a big word for you, Sonny.”

“Kiss my ass,” was the eloquent reply the blond got in return.

“No thanks, but hey, you want a sticker? I’ll give you a sticker if you can spell it.”

“I don’t think you even have a sticker; I ain’t spelling squat for you.” Their banter continued, but Grace eventually tuned it out, shutting her eyes against the almost soothing motion of the van. _Almost_ being the keyword, she thought, when the vehicle lurched as they drove over a hole in the road.

“You gotta be kidding me, huh?” Jason groaned as they finally exited the van to be met with Davis, bearing bottles of water. “No way I’m drinking that, okay? If we’re calling it a night, I’m gonna need something a lot stronger after four hours of SDR.”

Grace didn’t listen for Davis’s response, just taking the water offered to her and making her way to the barrack shared by the majority of Bravo. Even those of them bunking somewhere else crashed in there during the day. The four members that it actually belonged to whined, but never attempted to kick them out (not that it would actually work even if they did try, Jason assured them).

Gulping down some of the water, she followed Brock and Clay through the door, snatching up her computer and settling onto a spot she’d claimed on the floor, furnished with a pillow stolen off of Clay’s bunk. She clicked on the first contact she’d saved onto the device, a grin breaking out when the call connected almost immediately.

“Hey!” She smiled at the image on the screen. “How’s it going?”

“I’m good!” Naomi said, grinning back from the kitchen in their shared apartment. “It’s so good to see you again.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry it’s been so long. We’ve been real busy over here.”

“No, yeah, I get it,” the paramedic assured her. “I’m just glad you’ve got a breather now.”

“For now, at least,” Grace nodded. “But enough about that. What’s new with you?”

“Oh, you know,” she shrugged, “lots of work. My parents were in town last week--your folks say hi, by the way.”

“You told yours hello from me, right?”

“Of course. Yeah, there was that, and then I’m still rock climbing. Finally got that one route we couldn’t quite make last time.”

“Ah, I miss that. Nice work,” Grace said appreciatively. “You better not try that route we’ve been working up to until I’m home.”

“Of course not. I am trying some other ones, though. You’ll have to catch up to me once you’re back,” she teased. “Oh, and uh...I got engaged.”

Grace’s jaw dropped. “ _What_?” she exclaimed, drawing the attention of the rest of the team members loitering about in their barracks. “When?”

“Two nights ago,” Naomi laughed.

“Wha--congratulations! That’s amazing.” Most of Bravo was hovering over her shoulder by that point, quite possibly making strange faces based on Naomi’s poorly stifled laughter.

“What’d the paramedic roommate do?” Sonny drawled. Though she was getting to be well-known by the team, Naomi still couldn’t ditch that moniker.

“She got engaged!” Grace announced. “Two nights ago.”

“Hey, congrats,” Clay said, glancing at Grace out of the corner of his eye, remembering their previous conversation regarding her roommate’s significant other. The others echoed the sentiment, oblivious to Grace’s conflicting feelings.

“Thanks, guys,” the newly-engaged woman smiled.

“Okay, now to the important part,” the female SEAL said, her voice taking on a more serious tone. “How come you didn’t tell me you were proposing?”

“I didn’t actually propose,” Naomi explained. “I was still holding off. Lindsay beat me to it.” A voice hollered from somewhere off-screen on Naomi’s side of the call. “Speaking of, we’re actually going out to celebrate tonight, so I have to go now. I just wanted to check in first, and share the news.”

“Yeah, go have fun,” Grace said, her head practically spinning as thoughts spiraled around at lightning speed. “And congrats again. That’s amazing.”

“Thank you,” her best friend smiled warmly. “Take care of yourself, yeah?”

“Always do. See you.”

“Bye!” They hung up the call, Grace shutting the screen and tucking it away.

“Alright, well, I’m gonna go for a walk before racking out,” she said to her teammates.

She made her way outside, strolling around the base. There was almost no one outside, given the hour. Settling down onto a random bench, she took in the night sky. She’d been pretty good at picking out specific stars and constellations when she was younger, but this view was so different from the one she was used to. Wasn’t that a recurring theme right about now? Not even the sky could stay the same; remain a constant while Grace and Naomi moved farther and farther away from the days of the past. No longer were they hanging out in parks or backyards or fast food restaurant parking lots after school. No, Grace was miles away from home fighting in one of the most unstable places in the world, and Naomi was back in Virginia, getting ready to get married.

She felt someone lightly kick her ankle before taking a seat beside her. “So,” Ray began, following her gaze up to the stars, “I heard a certain roommate is now engaged.”

“Yep,” she said before lapsing back into silence.

“Good for her.”

“Yeah.”

“You aren’t happy about this?” he asked, though he already had some idea of the answer and the reason behind it.

“Not entirely, no.”

“You wanna get into more detail here, or…?” The young sailor didn’t say anything. Ray sighed. “I don’t think it matters who she’s engaged to, does it?”

“If you have something you want to say, just say it already,” Grace said tonelessly. “I’m not answering a question you haven’t actually asked.”

“Alright,” he conceded. “You have feelings for her.” It wasn’t even a question, just a statement of fact with an opening to be corrected.

“Yes, I’m in love with her, okay? I’ve loved her since high school, and I’ve never said anything, because she’s the best friend I could ever ask for. She’s better than I probably deserve, and I don’t want to risk losing her because of my stupid _feelings_.”

It was the first time she’d said it aloud. Part of her had hoped that saying it would make it feel more manageable, less of a heavy burden of a secret. Another part thought that maybe admitting to it would be what allowed her to let go of it. All of her was disappointed.

“And she’s never figured anything was up in all these years?”

“No. I just, she -- God, Ray, she doesn’t even know I like girls.”

“You never told her you’re bi?” Bravo 2 said, eyebrows raised. Their youngest member had never been shy about her sexuality--quite proud of it, in fact, so he was shocked that she’d never said anything to her old friend.

“Nope. I don’t even know why; she came out to me sophomore year and I just said ‘cool, I support you’ like every blog post about being a ‘good straight ally’ says to. And all I wanted was to say, ‘Hey, I like girls, too! Crap, I like _you_ ’, but I just couldn’t. I’ve had boyfriends since, she’s met them. As far as she knows, I’m straight as an arrow. There’ve been, like, two girlfriends too, but it was all sneaking around and it never lasted long, ‘cause who the hell wants to date the girl who’s still in the closet, right?”

“Okay, hey, take a breath,” Ray urged. Her confession had become increasingly frantic as she paced back and forth. “You’re absolutely sure of this?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m frustratingly certain of it,” Grace laughed ruefully. “It’s been nearly ten years now, _ten years_ of hoping this would go away. But I still get freaking butterflies every time she braids my hair, and I look for the worst in all her girlfriends, even though some of them were lovely people, and sometimes I’ll look at her and it’s like the world just stops and it’s just her, and I’d be totally fine if that was all I saw for the rest of my life.” Even now, she couldn’t stop a small smile forming across her face as she thought of Naomi, but it was soon gone as the situation sunk in again. “I didn’t ask for this,” she said softly.

“I know,” Ray said, taking in the sight of a hopeless Bravo 7. He’d seen such a range of emotions from her, as she never really tried to hide them, or if she did, she just had no poker face to speak of. He’d seen her overjoyed, angered, sad. She’d been pensive, sitting around the fire with a beer, carefree as she and Clay messed with Sonny, and totally engrossed in ops. But never had she looked so beaten-down, like she was ready to give up with the world she’d always been so determined to fight for.

“I don’t _want_ to be in love with her,” she swore, like if she just made it clear that she wasn’t down with this, it would go away. “We’re just friends, and it’s great, it’s perfect, and I want that to be enough, you know, to just forget about this stupid thing. Why can’t I just _get over_ this?”

“We don’t get to pick and choose our feelings, Grace. In the field, yeah, we push them down and get the job done, but we can’t do that forever.”

“But I can’t do anything about it, either. She’s getting married, and I’m not going to get in the way of that. I can’t do that to her. But this isn’t going to go away,” she admitted, looking like it physically pained her to do so.

“No, it’s not,” Ray agreed. “You love her. And you’re going to let her go and be with someone else, because _you love her_ , and you want her to be happy. Right?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I do.” Her eyes pricked with the sting of tears, and she pushed them down, because she swore that she’d never be the one to sob over a girl or a boy. Her worth would never be tied into some love affair; she was _more_ than that. She was supposed to be independent, and strong, and not desperate for the love of someone she couldn’t have. And yet, here she was, baring her soul to her teammate while her best friend celebrated her engagement thousands of miles away.

Ray just watched, let her make sense of the torrents of thoughts, the onslaught of emotions. Minutes passed, and Grace showed no signs of moving anytime soon. He’d leave her be for now, because sometimes, when an ear or a shoulder or a piece of advice wasn’t enough, the only thing left to give was a bit of space. So he headed inside, briefly resting a hand on her shoulder as he went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, well, there's that! I know it's a bit shorter than the last few, but I hope it was satisfying all the same! Let me know what you think. 
> 
> As always, I sincerely thank you for taking time to read this, despite the delay. I hope these updates brighten your day as much as your kind comments and kudos brighten mine.
> 
> A/N (8/2/20): Hey! Don't worry, you WILL be getting a Chapter 5. I promise I'm not giving up on this fic. However, I AM going on vacation for a few days, and I've been told that I can't bring my laptop, so there will be no updates for a few days. Just wanted to give the head's up that I'll be MIA for a bit.


	5. epilogue: you put your arms around me and I'm home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace and Naomi finally get their shit together and pull off a happy ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there.
> 
> This was the first fic I ever gathered the courage to post. The amount of focus and dedication I put into it this summer is something I'm proud of. Grace jumped into my head and would not leave me alone until I told her story.
> 
> However, summer ended, and school started kicking my ass. There's more to this story. Maybe I'll tell the rest of it someday. Today, I'm showing you how Grace and Naomi's story, at least the part of it that I know, ends. 
> 
> Am I uploading this at nearly midnight on Christmas Eve while in a sleeping bag on my bedroom floor cause I'm a disaster human? Yep.
> 
> Thanks for joining me on this adventure. Enjoy the last chapter :)
> 
> Love,  
> Kace
> 
> (Shit that was melodramatic)

The unit made their way to the parking lot, a heavy silence floating between them. What came next, they didn’t know. All they could do now was go home to their loved ones and hold them close, and be thankful they still had the chance to do so.

To Grace’s surprise, Naomi was leaning against her car as she approached it. Given that they were sharing a car for the week while Grace’s was fixed, she’d caught a ride to base with Clay before their op and was planning to do the same to get home.

“Hey,” her friend said, throwing an arm around her shoulder. 

“Hey,” she said.

“I heard about your teammate.” It must be all over the news by now. “I’m so sorry.”

“Naomi…” she looked into her friend’s eyes, then down again.

“Yeah?” What came next, they didn’t know, but there was one thing she needed to know for certain right now.

“Look, um, the whole time I was gone, all I could think about was coming home to you. This moment right here, that was what I was fighting to get back to. And it’s always been this way. It’s like you don’t even have to try, you’re just here and whatever’s going on, whatever happened to me, I know I’ll be okay as long as I’m here with you. I love you, Naomi. I’m in love with you. Have been for a while now.”

Well, there was that. Grace felt like she stopped breathing as she waited for a response.

Naomi’s eyes went wide, taken aback and visibly struggling for words. “Grace,” she said tentatively, “you’ve had a long, traumatic couple days. Are you sure this is really how you feel?”

Her heart sank. Part of her wanted to say yes, it was the trauma talking; just cut her losses before she broke something in a way that couldn’t be fixed. Wasn’t having Naomi in her life in any capacity better than not having her at all?

But then, she’d been living like that for nearly a decade. It hurt like hell to begin with, and it wasn’t getting any easier with time. It was wearing a hole into her heart, a gaping tear that couldn’t be held closed with the consolation of friendship. There came a point when love--and damnit, that’s what this was--couldn’t be pushed aside anymore.

Grace had just watched a man she’d looked up to for years lose his life. A man she’d still held a bit of hero-worship towards, who had still seemed like the hardened, invincible SEAL badass she’d thought of him as during her Green Team days. Over the years, she’d seen one of her best friends die in a freak parachute accident, her entire team taken out in one fell swoop, a woman nowhere near the dangers they signed themselves up for lose her life in a tragic car crash, and now, Seaver. Adam. 

All of this went to show that not a single day on this Earth was guaranteed. Grace knew that better than most. If she was going to put her life on the line time and time again, she would do it knowing the truth, even if it was one she didn’t like.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” she said, forcing herself to meet Naomi’s eyes. “I’ve had the better part of ten years to make sure.”

Her old friend sucked in a breath. “Ten years?”

“Yeah,” she said in a small voice.

“Wait, you’re--you like--?” A few aborted questions made her point clear. Just another thing Grace had refrained from mentioning over the past ten years.

“Bi, yeah. I’m sorry I never told you.”

“I kinda figured,” Naomi shrugged. “I just-- _ ten years _ ? Damn.” She caught her lip between her teeth, and then breathed out a little chuckle. “Damn you, Grace.”

Grace’s face fell. “I’m sorry,” she said, words practically falling over each other in her rush to get them out. “We can just act like this ne--”

“Oh, no no no, not like that,” Naomi hurried to assure her. “I’ve been trying to hide my feelings for months now.  _ Months _ , and this whole time--” she shook her head, cutting herself off with another laugh.

“Wait, you…?” She couldn’t believe her ears.

“Yeah. Yeah, Grace, I love you too. That’s why I broke up with Lindsay. I could go on with or without her, but I couldn’t picture my life without you in it. I don’t  _ want _ to.”

Grace broke out in a beaming grin. Both women started giggling, looked at each other, and then laughed even harder. Dancing around each other for years, only to find there hadn’t been a reason to. Oblivious to the eyes of Bravo team on them, they pulled each other into a hug, holding tightly. Oblivious, that is, until they all broke out into a lively chorus of cheers and wolf-whistles.

They pulled away, Grace shaking her head at her team’s immaturity. “Way to ruin a moment, you guys.”

“Hate to break it to you, girlie, but you two have basically been dating for years,” Sonny drawled. “This isn’t news to anyone.”

Grace sputtered. “Okay, first of all, you  _ gotta _ stop with the nicknames, each one is just progressively worse. And second,  _ what _ ?”

“Look around, kid,” Jason smirked. “No one’s  _ friend _ is picking them up after every op.”

“Wait, no, that’s just…” she trailed off, looking to Clay for help.

Her friend just laughed. “I’m pretty sure you two are the last ones to know about this.”

She looked around incredulously, searching for words. “Y’all are the worst,” she finally settled on. She would’ve kept going, but Naomi cut her off with a kiss.

Grace’s arms found their way around Naomi’s waist, Naomi’s hands going up to the other woman’s face. The cheers started again, even louder this time.

When Blackburn came outside to find the source of the racket, he found the two holding hands, Naomi’s head thrown back in laughter while a pink-faced Grace chucked her hat in the general direction of her unit.

The Lieutenant Commander took in the scene, then made his way over to Bravo 7. He clapped her on the shoulder and just said, “Finally.”

The young operator turned to face her boss, disbelieving. “You knew about this, too?”

“Anyone who heard you talk about Naomi, or saw her look at you, figured this out,” he said. “Frankly, it took you long enough.”

As Grace tried to figure out what to say to that, Sonny walked over and slung an arm around Naomi, pulling her away. Grace couldn’t fully tell what he was saying, but from what she could make out, it was something about what would happen if she ever hurt their sister.

Before she could intervene to save Naomi from Sonny’s well-meaning but probably absurd version of a shovel talk, Blackburn nudged her with his shoulder. “I’m happy for you two.”

“Thanks,” she said. Over her shoulder, he saw Jason joining Sonny on the other side of Naomi, Clay following closely behind.

“I think you’d better go rescue your girl,” Blackburn said.

The smile he got in return was blinding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is! 
> 
> Again, thank you for your kudos and your kind words and your time and attention. I'm so happy to know people love Grace as much as I do. Keep an eye out in other fandoms; I don't shut up so lord knows this isn't the last you'll hear of me.
> 
> Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. Belated Happy Hanukkah, and early happy New Years!
> 
> Seriously, thank you all beyond words.


End file.
